Broker Open House – Serving Lunch 11am – 2pm
Fire in the hole! Will you sell your soul for a half-a-sandwich?
This is a flecked spit rant. Yes, if I was lucky enough to be sitting next to you, I’d serve a towel with this shower.
My spittled rant is sprayed at sheeple who attend Broker Open House for the price of half-a-sandwich. Grazers with no clients, no prospects, no suspects and no sense. What they do have, is a keen nose for free lunch and an annoying habit of bleating philosophical about the ins and outs of nothing important. Gah!
Don’t hate yet. There’s plenty of time for that. Hear me out.
I’m Cool With Broker Open Houses.
In our market, The Woodlands TX, Broker Open Houses provide an opportunity for agents to expand their market and neighborhood smarts. The more you know, the more valuable you are. Amen!
Tribe members of the listing agent would be wise to support and attend a team members Broker Open House. Amen.
I’m on the teeter-totter when it comes to serving food. It does draw a crowd. A crowd makes the seller happy. Happy seller’s boost probabilities for referrals and recommendations. Cool.
Here’s my pet peeve.
I’m Not Cool With Sheeple Sandwich Eaters
I’m an embarrassed witness. They aren’t previewing to get smarter. They’re previewing to get fed. And bleat about all the biz they never did. The only positive. They eat and run. [Secretly, I wonder if some of these sheeple have purses and pockets lined with plastic baggies?]
I bet you can name 3 or 4 or more who are famous Open House Grazers. What a tragic personal brand. We can’t help these lost souls.
But wait, there’s more. I would like to share an opportunity with the “I haven’t thought it through” crew too.
Souls For Half Sandwiches and Thinking It Through
Don’t sell-out for half a sandwich. Or a gift card. Or a few dollars drawing.
DO tour your company/office listing and tour competitor listings to grow your knowledge and value. This is smart and strategic.
Don’t grab the tour sheet and map your path based on where the food is.
Here’s why. When we tour a competitors listing their traffic count goes up. When their wildly successful Open House results are reported to their seller, congratulations, we’ve just amplified the star-power, remarkability, referability and recommendability of your competitor. All for half-a-sandwich.
When we sell your professional soul for half-a-sandwich, you’re strangling your future success and polluting opportunity for your team members. When we preview for the purpose of amplifying our personal ocean of market knowledge, it’s a fair exchange.
Let me be clear, previewing with purpose is smart and strategic. Previewing for half-a-sandwich is selling-out and self-destructive.
Wait. There’s more: Filling out a “Comment Sheet” can kill opportunity too!
Open House Comments – When A Positive Turns Negative.
All we have to do is kindly fill out a comment/feedback sheet and the host agent will feed us and or enter us in a drawing for cash or prizes.
They’d like to know how we feel about the price and condition of the property. What recommendations and wisdom pearls will you share?
If it’s an office/company listing, by all means, let’s fill out the comment sheet. The seller hired our teammate and our team for our expertise. Let’s share it. All good!
Stop! If it’s a competitors listing, whoa, let’s politely decline to fill-out the comment sheet. Let’s respectfully leave a card. If pressed, here’s what I’d say, “You’re a smart agent, you know how to market, congratulations on the listing, I’ll show it if it matches my buyers. Good luck:-)”
Why?
The Business Of Business
Do you run your business like a business, a charity or a hobby?
Riddle me this scenario.
Would the whiz kids at Apple, gift wrap their shiny new 3GS iPhone and deliver it to the Rainmen at Microsoft, with a note that read:
“Dear Rainmen, Please find enclosed a gift certificate for half-a-sandwich and our soon to be released, white 3GS iPhone. We’d love it if you would give it a test run and tell us what you think. How should we price it? Is it easy to use? How about the design, do you have any advice? We’d love to hear from you. We’re going to use your feedback to gain market share and well, let’s be honest, we’re going to swing your foolish-feedback like a Steel-Stupid-Stick and beat the living crap outta your feedback sharing dumb-ass. Thanks.”
Seriously! That would never happen in business, a competitor asking another competitor for advice and feedback. Nor would any sane business respond with feedback if asked. Right?
So let me ask again, why would we want to help our competitor position for a faster sale and amped neighborhood recognition against us, our team members and most importantly, our sellers?
I say, “Don’t help competitors, position and out-sell your sellers, you or your team members.”
Broker Open House Tips
Ok. My mini-rant is spent. Here’s a couple of tips on previewing properties. These might seem obvious, but I’ve seen some accidental disasters in my day, so here you go.
1. Sellers are curious people. Curious enough to set up recording equipment. Sometimes the seller is quietly working in the study. What ever you say in the home, say it as if the seller was standing there. You never know who or how, where or when people are watching and listening.
2. When leaving written comments, don’t puke. This is an opportunity to use your shiny communication skills. Don’t say, “The place stinks of cat piss”. Say, “There’s a distracting odor”.
3. I’d love to hear what Tips you have. Share them in the comments.
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Thanks for reading.
PS. Perhaps I’ve over stepped my bounds and my post is insensitive, arrogant and heavy handed? If so, I ask your forgiveness. I did not intend to insult, I did intend to use sarcasm as a sharp stick to jab my point.
